It is exceptionally difficult for none Europeans to work legally in European Union countries.
Spain was a possibility for US and other citizens to work illegally until recently when 4 large chains of language schools went into liquidation leaving 1 000s of students who had paid for classes broke and in debt.

They also left more than 100 teachers broke and unemployed and without any legal recourse.

10 more countries will be joining the EU club on January 1st 2004 and the same employment rules will apply.

As has been mentioned, Belorussia will not be joining the EU. But I wouldn't recommend working or visiting that corrupt hole.

Incidentally, Turkey is also making applications to join the EU and hopes to get a 'fast track' entry.

I don't know how many times this has been said before but you will not have the same immigration rules throughout the EU.

Each country has its own rules. What is true is that when a country has passed through all the transitional phases (in the case of Spain that took from 1986-1993) then work visas will not be required of other EU citizens. There are also rules about having to accept other EU countries professional qualifications, which tend to kck in more quickly.

So what entrance to the EU means is not a hardening of any country's immigration controls but rather their abolsihment for certain classes of foreigners.

Now what this means is that a language school will eventually be able to hire a UK or Irish citizen as easily as it can hire one of its own, and so the American or Australian will be at a comparative disadvantage, but this is different from saying that joining the EU will bring in new immigration controls against Americans.

As for the language schools going broke in Spain, the only staff who would find themselves without protection would be those working illegally. I doubt if the schools involved actually had a large number of staff in that situation - if they did the fines alone would be sufficient to have put them out of business.

The main reason language schools are going broke in Spain is oversupply, and changing work and residence patterns. And to understand the oversupply you just need to look at the demographics. And in Wall Street's case a flawed pedagogoc and business model for the franchisee, as opposed to the franchise which appears to operate on a scorched earth policy.

Now dwindling supply will obviously affect the illegals; after all they will be the first to be laid off and the last to be hired.